Conclusion

Crucial’s BX500 has a cost-reducing DRAMless architecture, but that has a big impact on performance. Even without DRAM, the SSD can achieve the typical sequential throughput we expect from a SATA SSD, but the BX500's all-important 4K random performance, a key measurement of drive snappiness, is lower than most SSDs.

We have seen this type of performance before from drives like Toshiba's TR200, which also doesn’t have a DRAM cache. Like the BX500, that drive exhibits low performance in random workloads. Write performance also suffers during extended write workloads.

As we saw in the PCMark 8 and SYSmark 2014 benchmarks, the Crucial BX500 is unimpressive in tests that measure real-world application performance. The BX500 surpasses an HDD, without question, but there is a clear divide between it and other SSDs. While it comes with an SSD toolbox and Acronis True Image HD for migrating your data, the BX500's value proposition still leaves a lot to be desired.

Product

Capacity

TBW

Price

Warranty

Price Per GB

Price Per TBW

Crucial BX500

120

40

$26.99

3

$0.22

$0.67

240

80

$42.95

3

$0.18

$0.54

480

120

$69.99

3

$0.15

$0.58

Crucial MX500

250

100

$52.99

5

$0.21

$0.53

500

180

$72.99

5

$0.15

$0.41

Kingston A400

120

40

$24.99

3

$0.21

$0.62

240

80

$37.28

3

$0.16

$0.47

480

160

$76.99

3

$0.16

$0.48

Samsung 860 EVO

250

150

$52.99

5

$0.21

$0.35

500

300

$72.99

5

$0.15

$0.24

WD Blue 3D

250

100

$50.10

3

$0.20

$0.50

500

200

$77.99

3

$0.16

$0.39

Intel SSD 545s

128

72

$26.99

5

$0.21

$0.37

256

144

$54.99

5

$0.21

$0.38

512

288

$89.99

5

$0.18

$0.31

The BX500 family is priced competitively at $0.15- to $0.22-per-GB, but there are better options for only a few dollars more. It appears the viability of lower-tier products has nearly vanished at these low capacities. The BX500 would need to have a significantly smaller price tag for us to recommend it. Even if you are pinching pennies, we would recommend the WD Blue 3D, MX500, or Samsung 860 EVO. All those drives boast longer warranties, greater performance, and endurance at competitive price points.

Crucial BX500 (480GB)

Pros

Strong sequential burst performance

Low cost

Supporting software

Cons

Lower than average application performance

Low endurance

Low sustained write performance

Verdict

Crucial’s BX500 is a cheap option that will outperform any HDD as a boot drive, but it comes with drawbacks. The BX500's low endurance and application performance rank far behind most current-gen SSDs in the market. Pricing is competitive, but there are much better options available for just a few dollars more, including Crucial’s own MX500, making this drive hard to recommend.